Overwhelmed. I feel like my life has changed drastically in the last month, and yet in a lot of ways, things have stayed the same. At the end of February I packed up all of my belongings and my animals, said goodbye to my family, friends, jobs, and hometown, and moved to northeast Texas. It's been a busy, fantastic, sometimes frustrating and overwhelming change, but so far, picking up and moving away from everyone and everything I know has been one of the best decisions I've made in a long time. I now live with Jared and successfully integrated my pets with his, and now we have our own mini zoo of animals. I live in a part of the country that has hills and forests, which is vastly different from the flat farmlands and prairies around my hometown in Nebraska.
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| On the road to Texas |
I already have two jobs down here, one at Tiger Creek Wildlife Refuge and one where I help out a private owner with her multitude of exotic pets. I'm still working with animals, which is something that I knew I would always do. Also, everything in Texas is so spread out. I have a half and hour commute to get to Tiger Creek, and I have a nearly fifty minute commute to the exotics place! It's a damn good thing I love driving. But really though, the drive to both jobs is awesome. I love living in a city surrounded by a forest!
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| Faulkner Park |
I continue to travel, with trips planned from now until July (for now) and I've already been out on a trail here at Faulkner Park on the southern end of the city of Tyler. I took Marley and Callie on a soggy Friday morning two weeks after arriving at my new home and headed to the closest place I could find to go hiking. It was just us on the trails, and given that we nearly needed waders to walk on some of the trails, I could see why we were alone. The park is mostly used by the local mountain bike scene, but is also available to people like me who crave a little bit of nature while living in a city. Of course, I crave a lot of nature, but Faulkner Park was a nice teaser. My dogs and I hiked roughly four of the six miles of trails in the park, but Marley absolutely refused to go any farther and I had to drag him to the car to go home. We came home muddy and wet, the dogs were exhausted and I was (and still am) chomping at the bit to get back on a trail.
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| "It's raining. Let's go home." |
April will see me heading farther south to visit a friend in San Antonio, May will bring me back home to watch my little brother graduate and to spend some time with my dad in western Nebraska, and for now, I'm keeping the rest of my travels to myself until everything is all set, but it won't be long until I'm headed out on another adventure. I guess that's what happens when you find your passion.
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| Yeah. I work with otters. They're mischievous little beasts! |
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